Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1887-02-25
FRIDAY MORNING. FEB. 25. 1887.

City Council doubled the license in the
case of saloons and trebled it where the
nuSaIoon adds retailing to it's bar business
nhtjon finds two very determined
asition. and strange to
The saloon keepers
nd entirely diff
lghely different
cments are opposing
The opposition of the for
Who have to bear the burden of
opposed increase was to have been ex-
Ted; it is natural that they should re-
but we had supposed that any sort of
Tnction in the liquor traffic would have
welcomed by the latter. That there
hch reduction, the statistics of every
and State where High License bias
Zen tried proves beyond question. In
ohio it has closed 900 saloons and raised
the license revenue to $4,000 900; 10 Mis-
souri, 1t has closed 720 saloons and in
creased the license revenue from $547 600
to 81 842, 600; Illinois from 500, 900 to
$4.500,000. and in the city of Chicago
it has closed one-ffth of the saloons ard
added ST. 800, 900 TO its revenue. These are
facts from the official record They Can
not be swept away by such sentiment as
compromising with the devil'' and the
like, with which Prohibitiouists meet their
announcement. To neutralize such facts
the Prohibltionist must produce evidence
that his plan prohibits, estops, puts IA end
to the liquor traffic. Can he do so? Natur-
ally he would go to tie point where it has
been longest tried to prove 1t. Let
us also go there. In Maine it has bsen
tried for twenty-slx years, and of its ope-
ration in that State Gen. Neal Dow, its
chief advocate. we might say the father
of it, wrote letter last October 10 which
ne said: "In every city in Maine, except
Portland. the law has been and is abso-
lutely ignored, and the authorities refuse
to take any measures whatever for the
extinction of the low grog-shops which
infest them and iufict great suffering up
on large numbers of people," 1t will be
observed that Gen. Dow excerpts Portland
so that we are naturally curious to know
how it is enforced in that city. Our curl
osity can be grati6ed by the utterauce of
Rev. J. A. Albeit, an able and prominent
lecturer on Prohibition, in lecture de-
liyered in the exceptional city itself, very
recently at temperance gathering. He
said: I'm the city of Portland L fnd
worse state of affairs than in any city of
the samesize in New York under license
law NoS, from the oldest point of trial
let us go to the newest. Rhode Hand
which is the latest State which has made
the Prohibition experiment The figures
published there by the Providence j pur-
nal'' show that six months ago, before
Prohibition went into effect, there werr
Al licensed saloons in that city paying &
revenue of $13l, 618 into the city treasury
OF those saloons taU0 hundred and eiQiaty
eight 6re still open, in front or rear, and al
,sa.idred and sixteen club houses'' which
have been opened in the short space of six
months which sell liquor secretly. The
journal" in summing up the results Of
the Prohibition law for the six months it
has been in operation says:
Again, either these methods of secret selling
are increasing, or larger number of people
are coming to avail themselves thereof, for
there has been, taking the State as a whole
more or less noticeable increase of drunken
ness during the last quarter as compared with
the first three months under the prohibitory
law. This increase varies from 1872 per cent
II yoonsocket, down to a scarcely appreciate
srna ant in some of the country towns In
tsspidence, during the last three months, ar
rests for Drunkenness alone have increased
sva1 8 per cent. while both the foreign and
79g. estic importation Of liquor Gdoanced uery
ss.4tsgia1ly in the closing months Of thu gear.
There is showing of six months ore
atom of Prohibition in a State where
ss Prohibition sentiment is stronger,
mere the police are more numerous IN
lToportion to the population, and where
s5e habit of drinking among all classes IS
iess common, than in Virginia! So it
would appear from these statements that
.ohibition neither as an old and long
fF}ed effort, nor as new experiment,
prohibits, and as they come from the
trends and not the opponents of that sys-
IA we presume they are to be relied on.
s9 IS as noticeable in New York, where
Strong effort is being made to adopt
nigh License law, as it is In Stanton,
that it meets an equally violent opposition
FROM the Prohibitionists, and the saloon
keepers. brewers and all interested in the
I,gIior trade.
Jae objection to the High License law
ard one that is both practical and reason
abAs if correct, is that it will make saloons
respectable" and that young men would
% likely to go into them when they
Fgouldn't into low doggery. Well, let US
look at thati There are now in Staunton
eleven licensed liquor saloons-it may be
little more or little less, but not much
eseher way. There is not one of them tina
rs know of.that man. if he drinks atal,
you'd be ashamed to go into in open day,
They are respectable and respectable
men go into them. tits greatly overdone
business here in proportion to other branch
s. ofNtrade-th' are not eleven dry
s.oods, drug, hardware, sloe, or book
stores. The propristors of q &c saloons
50 not roughs or rowdies. and most of
4eal are men advanced in years-steady,
ai4, business men. There il no lack of
70 business responsibility which the char
usof these proprietors throws around i,
ices OF business. And yet the Pro- |
oppose plan by winch the
- gould be iessened, on the
Isspsa would produce
They don't